Single of the Week!

Sticky feat. Lamahra Starr - ‘Cutting Shapes’ (Big Dada)

People say to me*: 'How do you decide which single is empirically best each week? I mean, they are all so different, it must be so hard.' And I say to you, my internet friends, what I do, is to pick the songle that makes Narnia happen in my brain. And this week, it is this one. Mainly because I am sucker for goofy, piano house. Especially ones that have a gutsy, bucket-of-pluck ladyvocal on the top of them; and most especially ones that makes you think that the more you listen, the strongerer you will be.

Cloud Boat - ‘Wanderlust' (Apollo Records)

It is lucky for us that Cloud Boat's Tom Clarke sounds so very much like Owen Pallett, for God would have been entirely stingy to only make the one of him. And though Clarke shares Pallett's ability to haunt, and though Clarke's vocals are part of what makes 'Wanderlust' such an uneasy listen, the main draw here is Cloud Boat's approach to percussion. I was what my Mum always used to call 'overtired' when I heard it first; and I heard what I thought were distorted handclaps, keys turning in locks, guns being reloaded. But it was hard to tell if these noises were in my head, or in the world, or breaking down my door. Unsettling.

Tame Impala - ‘Mind Mischief’ (Modular)

Tame Impala have done a video in which a sexxxxxxxy skool teacher sasses her way to a Citroen 2CV before unpinning her tumbling tresses (always with the tumbling, you women), lighting up a jazz cigarette and copping off with a schooliformed boy. Then there's some animation in which they both get their bits out, she swallows him whole, and then spits him back onto the rugby field. EVE WAS WEAK, etc.

Steve Mason & Emiliana Torrini - 'I Go Out' (Speedy Wunderground)

Recorded in a day, 'I Go Out' is a two-hander agg-ballad about that thing that happens in relationships when all of a sudden you are expected to tell the other person WHERE YOU ARE and WHAT YOU ARE DOING at ALL TIMES. Given that 'Where are you going?' and 'What are you doing?' not to mention 'What shall we do today?' never mind 'How was work?' and ohsweetjesus 'What do you fancy for dinner?' are five questions no one who still wants to be having sex after year three should be asking, it's surprising how non-annoying 'I Go Out' turns out to be. It's got that testy, bristling air that anyone who ever lived with anyone will recognise all too readily.

Lady - ‘Money’ (Truth & Soul)

If you would like to hear a pitch-perfect soul record so utterly unadorned with kitsch, gimmick or gewgaw it is almost jarring, do give 'Money' a listen. Some cloth-brained fartknuckle has written something in the comments about it 'sounding like Amy Winehouse' but that is the internet for you - until there is a way for The Man to stop us treating it like a blackboard we can draw wangs on until the teacher comes in, we must all suffer fools.

Riva Starr - ‘Absence’ (Snatch!)

I like 'Absence' but I cannot help feeling I have heard its stylings before. Precisely, its production is putting me in mind of 'Carboot Soul' in a suburban carpark, late at night, when me and my mates was young enough to not to have anywhere to go after the barmaids called time. All very appealing.